


The Little Things

by rustyHalo



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awfully long and stupid, Crack ships because how do I ships, F/M, Guest Star!Equius Zahhak, M/M, Officestuck, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:17:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustyHalo/pseuds/rustyHalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn't happen in a single moment. It didn't start from a death-defying feat. It built up over time, slowly worsening, like a terminal illness. It begun with the little things.</p><p>You didn't think it would hurt as much as it did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> Part two of Make Up To Readers For Not Being Always There To Update And Shit. I wrote this waaaaay before I wrote chapter five of the multichap, and idk. I felt like Sadstuck so I did Sadstuck. :( Please don't kill me.

_John Egbert. 26 years old. Average height, fit, unruly black hair, wears glasses._

_And those blue, blue eyes._

You watch him from your work cubicle. He’s talking to someone on the phone, probably a client or your boss.

Or his girlfriend.

You shake that thought out of your head. Better get back to work if you don’t want to get fired for slacking off. You pick up your pen and list some names, but you’re still watching him.

(He can’t possibly have a girlfriend.)

He looks up, smiles and blushes. Of course he’d blush.

Your track record states your very clear position as a lady-killer/man-eater on this floor. You’ve dated two-thirds of the female population, one-fourth of the male, and totaling them, you took half home. All of them were just one-time things, but even if they were, no one could hate you. You were too charismatic, too important, and most of all, too attractive.

Sleeping with you gave them bragging rights, too.

Egbert, though, is not one of the people you’ve dated, or even hung out with a lot. Just coffee breaks and cubicle visits for asking who called for this or that and the occasional pee break. And he visits your flat. Sometimes.

He’s not ugly, of course, but he’s not much of a looker either. You guess it’s the glasses and the teeth. Thick-framed rectangular shits, and an overbite. But somehow that makes him more attractive, in the sense that he looks kind of really adorable and clumsy and fuck, you just wanna eat him up.

Your thoughts aren’t exactly the purest.

Coffee break comes around a jillion years later. That translates to two hours in real time. You both clock out after a while, having the same shifts and schedules. Lucky you.

“Hey, Egbert, wanna get coffee? My treat,” you nudge him at the elevator.

He blinks. “Wow. Free coffee from _the_ Dave Strider?” He rolls his eyes at this—good-naturedly, of course, because he chuckles right after. “Is it your birthday? Man, you should have told me, I didn’t get you anything!”

You inwardly sigh. “Jesus Christ, can’t a dude offer coffee for free to a workmate anymore? My birthday was last month if you can’t remember. A good eleven months to go before the next one.”

“I was kidding, Dave. Of course I remember! But, okay, why not!”

You nervously tap a beat on your thigh except Striders don’t get nervous.

So here’s the thing. You have a total dude crush on Dweeby McStripeytie. 

You don’t know why.

Okay, no, you actually do.

* * *

You are sitting in the pantry, about eighteen months ago, in August. Like the rebellious motherfucker you were, you had your sleeves rolled up, top three buttons popped open and chair tilted against the wall. You aren’t tipping over, since you are light and balanced, plus the wall holds your weight with the chair.

You are sitting below the photo of a clown with a tear streak on his face, and you are eating bagel mini-pizzas and watching Dora the Explorer behind aviators.

Zahhak (big man, wears cracked glasses, somehow allowed to wear his hair shoulder-length) enters the open door to the pantry to grab a glass of milk. After crushing five glasses and spilling the entire carton, he sighs and walks out and gently shuts the door.

Of course, “gently” for Zahhak is never gentle enough.

The door slams against your wall, disintegrates the potted plant _opposite_ your wall, unplugs the fridge—don’t ask how—and unmounts the hanging frame of the stupid large-ass frame from your wall.

The equation leads that frame to fall on your head.

Your chair tips over and you fell, slumped against the wall uncomfortably, unconscious.

* * *

You wake up, but keep your eyes closed. Even with them shut, it feels too bright. Plus, you hear someone rustle beside you.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” the voice is shaking, panicking. “Oh god, please be alive.”

A cold hand softly holds yours and the other checks for pulse. After a sigh of relief, the hand on your wrist flutters onto your forehead. Fingers ghost over it and everything hurts, even if the fingers are barely touching your skin.

The hand moves on to sleek your hair.

As it comes out, the same voice whispers, “Oh my god, you’re _bleeding_.”

Your eyes fly open and you gasp out, “What?” The word hurts and your throat is dry. How long were you out?

“Oh god, Dave Strider you’re awake! Dude, we have to get you to the hospital!”

You get over the blinding white fluorescent lights and focus on the face overhead. It’s that guy. You know him but you can’t place him.

“I don’t feel anything. Shit, I am good as gold, lemme go.” You prop your elbow on the checkered tile floor and attempt to sit up, but wobble and fail. The black-haired guy catches you before your dripping head hits the floor.

“Oh, man, don’t! D…don’t move too much, okay? Don’t worry, I’ll—I’ll do something.” He starts panicking again and you thump his forehead and shut your eyes once more.

“Shh, shh. ‘Scool. You can leave me here. Get your ass back to your desk.”

“No! No, okay? I won’t do that!” He’s—wow, really he’s crying? He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes against his shirt. Yeah your eyes are closed, but the rustling is a huge help.

“I’ll look after you, okay?”

You look up at him. “What.”

“Not l-like a nanny-thing, no! Just, until you get better I guess! I mean—“

You roll your eyes and pull his ear.

“Ow ow ow ow ow.”

“Hey, kid,” you whisper in his ear.

“What?”

You make a shooshing sound and kiss him.

He flails and you let his ear go and he is red as a beet and he’s breathing hard. “A-Are you losing a lot of blood!”

Aw, naw. “No, shit, I was just—“

“I’ll call the ambulance!”

“Please stay,” you exhale as you throw an arm over your eyes. This is exhausting. You never put ‘hang out with an overreacting dork who drinks too much coffee’ as an option in your to-do list, but you can’t actually stay here longer because you are starting to feel dizzy.

You’re bleeding and you can feel your hair stick to your everywhere, but he sighs and says, “Fine, I will.” He takes something out of his pocket and you think it’s his phone because it beeps but you don’t open your eyes because his cold hand is still holding yours.

He starts humming and you fall asleep.

* * *

You wake up in a sterile-white room.

He’s not there.

That’s when you remember.

Holy shit he was the new guy, Something Egbert.

Oh, _god_ , you just ruined everything.

Hold the fuck up. Why are you worrying about this. Why do you even care? You’re Dave fucking Strider, right? He’s some dorky new office guy. It won’t matter because you’re cool and he saw you in the absolute lowest point of your life oh shit why.

You overthink this for a few minutes more before deciding to conk yourself out.

* * *

You’re back in the game a week after and there are sticky notes of all shapes and sizes stuck to your work cubicle.

Great. How are you gonna clean this shit up?

You dump your bag under the metal file desk table thing and rip the notes off your chair, glancing at the scrawled sentences, words and letters that, you notice, are mostly from the company’s ladies.

Of course, throwing them would be a waste (OF TIME), so you open your lowermost drawer and dump them in, burying your sketchpad, Faber Castell shit and three envelopes in a sea of neon green, electric blue and hot pink.

Wait envelopes what.

You dig around and pull the three envelopes out. You flip them around and see they’re for you. Duh. So you rip the one on top open. You unfold it and search for the writer’s identity.

It’s Egbert.

You shove the letter back in its envelope and stow the three in your topmost drawer. You don’t read any of them and just slowly, slowly raise your head.

He’s sitting in the cubicle across yours. He looks up and smiles.

* * *

You end flashback time. He’s leading you to the lobby’s Starbucks, and you follow him inside.

“So,” you whisper hoarsely. You cough and he laughs. Shit, this guy’s the sole witness of all your failures.

“What’ll you have?”

He stares up at the menu, then says, “Chocolate chip with extra whipped cream. You pick which size.”

“I’m not the one drinking it.” You walk and fall in line.

“I know. Thus, my energy depends on your decision!” He walks away, grinning, and looks for a table.

You remember what happened after you got back from the hospital.

You turn to the cashier. “I’ll have two chocolate chips, please, one with extra whipped cream. Thanks.”

* * *

You are in the copy room and a girl approaches you. “Dave, welcome back. Are you doing okay now?”

“Yeah, I’m better than okay.”

She blushes and photocopies a sheet of paper. “Oh. I just thought maybe I can come over and take care of you for the night?”

You stop at the door and ask, “Tonight? Well, let me see…”

“I could, um, show you how helpful I can be, right now.” She pushes the door closed with her shoulder and unbuttons her collar.

You skip that scene, and the next three months, because you sleep with her and five more officemates within that time period.

(You also skip that because Egbert knocked on your door and caught you mid-action that night, if you know what I mean. You told him you slept in the nude to make him go away.)

* * *

You take the tray of overpriced liquid sugar and look for Egbert. He waves at you from a table in the middle of all the tables.

* * *

You remember waking up each morning after sleeping with someone. Then arrive at work and see John.

Some weird guilt gnaws at you, like you are ashamed of what you did the previous night, which is really fucking odd because first off, who regrets _that_ , and second, you never feel guilty. Ever. In addition to that, your guilt comes with some free Think of Egbert For No Apparent Reason coupons that you use and re-use unconsciously.

The guilt eats at you into the next month. It got so distracting, you keep rejecting all the invitations the girls (and some guys) send you just to get that guilt trip at bay. All except Jones’s, because, _man_ , that Jones was one fine lady.

She’s the only person you sleep with that month.

* * *

“Wow, trenta? That’s _huge_ , man!” His eyes light up like Thomas Edison just switched on the very first light bulb in history.

You get butterflies in your stomach just by looking at his grin.

You force yourself to move, though your knees are wobbling and your hands are shaking, sweating even. You suavely fumble to the table and sort of slam the tray onto the surface. You take a seat and lean back.

He’s still grinning. You still look cool. It’s all good.

* * *

Like you were saying, December. You slept only with Jones, on December 2. You remember because the next day was your birthday.

You wake up with the same guilt on your birthday. It doesn’t help that John hops onto the same train as you. He chatters away at you, through tripping on his laces, to you forcing him to sit down on an empty seat as you stood in front of him, faux-listening.

You’re actually really not listening.

You pretend to look at him attentively (well, as attentive as a Strider can get) through the same aviators, but you’re really watching him. How his face emphasizes the details of his current story with expressions far too diverse for a person. How his tongue darts over his bottom lip when he pauses for breath, or when he’s trying to think. How his hands flail unhelpfully when he’s conjuring up an image of, say, a building, or maybe a dog.

The guilt grows tenfold.

Being in the same elevator with him (alone, too, mind you) feels…pretty different. The journey to the 26th floor is a short one, but it seems like you can ask him basically anything you want to know about him. The way he leans against the patterned wall, bag on the floor, looks weird to you. Well, it’s almost the exact opposite of the Office John you see every day. It was refreshing, at the very least.

You work overtime on your birthday. He asks you why. You can’t exactly answer, because you don’t know either. You shrug and say it’s your birthday. He becomes outraged and forces you to go home because you need a proper celebration, damn it!

(You hate working overtime.)

You don’t flinch or falter, or even change your mind, though it was tempting. So he tries resolving it with an illogical, irrational decision.

He works overtime, too.

That was when you started taking note of the little things.

* * *

“Hey, dude, your frappe is melting.”

“What. Oh, yeah,” you deadpan and reach for the cup. You take three long sips quietly.

He’s happily slurping his own diabetes-in-a-cup, looking around.

It’s January 27 today. You’ve been in love with John Egbert for one year, one month, three weeks and three days.

(You cross out every single day on your wall calendar.)

“Dave, can I have your frappe?” He starts guiltily. Right. Look where _that_ got you. “I-If you’re not drinking it, that is! I mean, yeah, you know, whatever!”  
You stare at him for a moment, letting his voice sink in.

“Yeah, sure,” you say, and hand over the cup.

His hand closes around it, fingers tangling awkwardly with yours. He keeps it there for a moment and you look at it. The two hands, his and yours, look perfect together.

That’s it. You’re telling him now.

“Egbert.”

He’s grinning at you.

“Hey, man.”

No, wait, he’s grinning _behind_ you.

“John.”

He blinks and stands. “Yeah, hold that thought!”

He runs off somewhere but you don’t look where to. Instead, you slump back and curl and uncurl your toes. You’re fucking shitting your pants and he doesn’t even notice. This guy.

You press the heels of your palms against your eyes, and he comes back seeing you that way.

“Sorry for running off, just, hehe!”

“Nah, it’s fine. I just…”

Here goes. You open your eyes.

“I just wanted to tell you that I l—“

“Oops! Oh gosh, not to be rude but I wanted you to meet Feferi!”

 _That_ made you whip your head. You look at him and at this dolled-up chick with long, wavy hair. You stand up, as if something inside you ordered you to do so.

“Dave, this is Feferi.” He’s smiling so wide and you’re finding it hard to breathe. He’s so perfect and beautiful and…

And he’s holding her hand.

“She’s my girlfriend.”

You take her other hand and shake it. “Hey, what’s up.”

“Hello! It’s nice to finally meet _the_ Dave Strider,” she smiles, shaking your hand. You raise an eyebrow and she says, “John talks about you a lot, I’d be jealous if you weren’t a guy!”

You nod once. “Right.”

John’s telling you all about her again: what she does, why she’s here, but you tune him out. You’re inwardly cradling the still-crumbling pieces of your heart.

That’s all there really is to say on the matter.

He waves at you. “I’ll go with her to the counter, and then we can all hang out, okay?”

His smile makes you cringe, and you look away, afraid that if you look at him a second longer, your eyes would fill up involuntarily. Maybe the tears are even on the way up now.

So you just watch them walk away.

You sit down and whisper, “I love you.”


End file.
